O’MALLEY HAS BLOODLINES TO BE OWNER PADRES NEED, IF HE HAS BUCKS TO DO IT

Peter O’Malley has the pedigree. He’s a second-generation owner who ran the Los Angeles Dodgers when they were a first-class operation.

His past performance chart fairly glitters with financial and artistic achievement, with attendance records and championships. If O’Malley wants to get back into baseball, he is exactly the sort of steward the Padres sorely need: connected, respected, responsible, visionary.

But despite the favorable buzz O’Malley’s name evokes, the sale of the Padres is not yet a one-horse race. There are at least three or four different groups exploring the idea — O’Malley being the most public — and the list may run much longer than that.

And in this race, if you don’t have the bucks, bloodlines alone aren’t going to get you to the finish line.

“I can smell big money when I get involved,” one prospective bidder said Saturday, on the condition of anonymity. “I think this thing is going to go for a big number.”

When Frank McCourt took the Dodgers through bankruptcy court to a $2.1 billion sale last month, the ripples included a rise in the value of other major league clubs. As the first franchise to test the market in the wake of the Dodgers deal, and with disappointed Dodgers bidders still interested in getting in the game, the Padres likely will sell for substantially more than the $530 million purchase price Jeff Moorad negotiated in 2009 (including debt assumption).

How much more? Enough that some wealthy people are anticipating sticker shock.

Though one interested party says the Padres’ value may actually have decreased since John Moores attempt to sell the team in installments to Moorad’s investment group — based on the club’s attendance, pricing and on-field performance — another expects to be intimidated by an inflated price.

When Forbes magazine estimated the Padres’ current value at $458 million last month, it valued the Dodgers at $1.4 billion. Those calculations were published on March 21, less than a week before the Dodgers sold for 50 percent more than the magazine’s valuation.

Because of their scarcity, their high profile and their prestige, sports franchises often sell at revenue multiples exceeding those of similarly sized businesses. In its 2012 U.S. Professional Sports Market & Franchise Report, San Francisco-based WR Hambrecht & Co. says “buyers of professional sports franchise(s) tend to ascribe a high ‘psychic’ value to owning a professional franchise which goes beyond intrinsic financial metrics.”

Based on Forbes’ figures, the Dodgers sold for roughly 9.1 times their 2011 revenues of $230 million. That same formula would peg the Padres’ price at almost $1.5 billion — about twice the general consensus of the club’s potential price tag.

The two situations are not analogous. The Dodgers’ deal anticipates a regional sports television contract that has yet to be negotiated in the nation’s second-largest market and includes a significant real estate component. Yet as Magic Johnson’s group demonstrated with an offer that topped the next-closest bid by an estimated $700 million, a blind auction can yield surprising results.

Johnson’s group may have believed it necessary to pay an extravagant premium to ensure outbidding Steve Cohen, a part owner of the New York Mets whose estimated net worth of $8.3 billion ranked him 35th on the Forbes 400 last September.

(Presumably, Cohen is closer to a $10 billion man today. Since the day the Forbes rankings were published, the Dow Jones industrial average has risen by nearly 19 percent.)

Jonathan Gasthalter, Cohen’s longtime spokesman, declined comment Saturday when asked about the hedge fund billionaire’s potential interest in the Padres. Though several baseball sources expressed doubt that Cohen would be inclined to buy a small-market club, the mere mention of his name can make rich men skittish.

“If Steve Cohen wanted to get involved, he could buy five teams,” one major-league minority owner said. “Take down a piece of paper and write down $9 billion and look at all the zeros. It’s an enormous number.”

That said, because the Padres’ sale will be governed by Major League Baseball and not a bankruptcy judge, the highest bidder cannot necessarily count on getting the club.

When the Boston Red Sox were sold in 2001, John Henry’s $660 million bid was selected over a $750 million offer from New York attorney Miles Prentice, ostensibly because baseball did not believe Prentice’s financing was secure.

Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan later submitted a $700 million bid for the team that was rejected as “untimely.”

The moral of that story is that it always helps to be a member of the lodge. To buy the Red Sox, Henry was obliged to sell his interest in the Florida Marlins. That created an opening for Jeffrey Loria to unload his Montreal Expos on a partnership crafted by the commissioner’s office and to make a fresh start in Florida. (The Expos have since been re-branded as the Washington Nationals.)

Buying the Padres should be simpler, but it is bound to be expensive. Peter O’Malley has the name. His odds will improve if he also has the money.